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A comment on My professional opinion as a blockchain researcher: I don’t see the point (yet). Parent comment

Re:My professional opinion as a blockchain researcher: I don... by Tyrek on Monday February 12, 2018 @10:02AM (#16358979)
A reason in search of a problem. Intermediaries in finance exist the same way that lawyers exist - to translate technical gibberish for you, and to bear some burden of the risk if they do so negligently.

As pointed out in the main text, the blockchain doesn't truly remove the intermediary, it just switches it from the previous intermediary to the underlying blockchain code + governance structure, which is subjectively a higher risk intermediary, at least right now.

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Re:My professional opinion as a blockchain researcher: I don... by slivym on Monday February 12, 2018 @10:42AM (#16359303)
Not to mention that since people aren't actually conducting business exclusively in bitcoin they are forced to transfer back to fiat currency constantly which is a transaction that has all the same risks.
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Re:My professional opinion as a blockchain researcher: I don... by sparkie on Thursday February 15, 2018 @07:26AM (#16383479)
It's possible to exchange between cryptocurrencies without trust by utilizing time-bound multi-signature transactions. You can't do that when there's a non-cryptocurrency involved.

The fact that the latter is riskier says a lot more about non-cryptocurrencies than it does about cryptocurrencies.

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